Owen Williams to Gloucester

[MrPartridge]

Heard this from friends last night. Been in the Gloucester press as per http://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/wh ... story.html

Contract thread on here says confirmed by Fissler so sounds likely although it is now 'silly season' as we have ticked into 2017...

I prefer Burns at 10 so not gutted but he showed home to Munster with the last kick he has ability and bottle. For me, he just hasn't moved on in last 18 months as much as I expected.

[Noddy555]

Oh God I hope not Fly half is the one position that we have had adequate cover in with Owen and Freddie Burns, lets hope that this is just newspaper speculation.

[Coops]

Plenty of news about it from various sources - think it's a done deal myself.

Just hope that the backfill recruitment has also been sorted, they will have known for sometime that OW wasn't renewing/extending.

[Lammy]

He's gone hasn't he. Disappointing but consoling myself with three things:

1) Whilst a player should never be judged on one game, Owen wasn't good on Saturday. In fact I'm not sure he's the player now that I thought he would be after his impressive arrival.

2) I think we have to assume that it's the same scenario as Fearns- the financial offer was too good to turn down so hopefully freeing up some cash

3) Never mind the coaching/ Board issues, the squad on the whole have under performed. Something clearly needs to give with the squad balance and we can't recruit without departures

[WiggoTiger]

Heard this as well at the match on New Years Day. Sad to see him go but feel I agree with others he has seemed to have not progressed as expected. Feel it could have been being in and out of the team and in different positions too often over the last few seasons.

[G.K]

Wish him well and sorry to see him go really. We're not exactly over resourced in the 10/12 area at the moment so again, like a lot of things at Tigers over the last two seasons, I don't quite get the reasoning behind it, unless he wants to go?

Good luck to him anyway.

[Jose]

I'm gutted if this is true. I think he's a better fly half from a control and game management perspective than Burns, he's a much better defender and he dovetails better with Youngs as a half back partnership. Also think his relative lack of progress owes much to the fact he's a facilitator and has been unable to form an effective partnership with a 12 due to the absence of a regular 12 throughout the last 2 years. So unless we've got somebody exceptional lined up then this is bad news.

[RagingBull]

Well him and Youngs didn't clicked last weekend.

All our good attack has come from burns in my eyes, Williams is a better defender and has more range kicking wise, BUT Burns kicking game and management has improved a hell of a lot this season.

[Roly]

The first thing you do when your ship gets torpedoed is go for the life boats.

[drc_007]

Well him and Youngs didn't clicked last weekend.

All our good attack has come from burns in my eyes, Williams is a better defender and has more range kicking wise, BUT Burns kicking game and management has improved a hell of a lot this season.

If you want to play a limited game, kicking for territory and hoping the opposition make mistakes then Williams is a reasonable option. However if you want to attack the opposition then I'd say Burns is much the better option. I can't remember Williams opening up a defence from 10, but there have been a number of instances when Burns has made a break. With Burns at 10 defenders have to have a couple of players marking him, Williams poses such a limited attacking threat that they can focus elsewhere.

[Noddy555]

Yes Raging Bull but is that Owens fault, I think not but the half duo relationship improved in the few minutes that Sam Harrison replaced Youngs, what does that say about the England international?

[RagingBull]

Yes Raging Bull but is that Owens fault, I think not but the half duo relationship improved in the few minutes that Sam Harrison replaced Youngs, what does that say about the England international?

I wasn't the one who brought up him and Youngs as a partnership up. it prob is down to Youngs but to say he has a better partnership is wrong IMO.

Let's face it Flood and Ford both had the best partnership with Youngs.

(Also Williams and Harrison hardly shone v Exeter).

[Cagey Tiger]

Fissler on Twitter saying £400k/year. I like OW a lot, but he's not worth that much.

[westwinds31]

Let's start adding up the Glos salary cap then shall we ? Fearns reportedly on £1m was over 3 years, Williams £400k, then you've got Afoa, Scott, Hibbard to name just a few..add that lot up.

[Tigersunited]

Decent squad player/ backup but wouldn't want him for that money - good luck gloucs!